"Normally, you like a frozen crust on snow so your crampons don't ball up with snow, but this is different," Talley said. "With the rain and freeze cycles, there's something called rime ice ... and it's really loose and normally it's just fluffy. But these were like dinner plates, hard ice dinner plates."

Another climber who was near the group said he saw how unsafe the conditions on the 11,240-foot mountain east of Portland were and turned back.

"Just really hard ice, you weren't able to get tools in or proper footing," Wyatt Peck said. "Just felt very insecure."

The Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office told FOX12 deputies worked "feverishly" since shortly after 11:10 a.m. to reach seven other people who were near the Hogsback area of the mountain, where the deadly plunge took place.

Rescuers ascend Mount Hood in a snow tractor. Teams on the mountain were attempting to reach stranded climbers on the Hogsback.
(Dave Killen/The Oregonian via AP)

A helicopter was flown in to hoist the man off Mount Hood, where he was rushed to a hospital but later died. The name and age of the victim were not immediately released.

Two climbers who were in the same party as the man who fell were guided down the mountain to a snow tractor, while rescuers used a sled and a rope system to bring down a woman in the party who said she was unable to move.

Steve Rollins of Portland Mountain Rescue said the woman arrived at the Timberline Lodge just before 8 p.m., when rescue operations were completed.

"It was very hard to move under these types of conditions and she was very brave and very stoic during her evacuation," he said of the woman who was rescued, adding that she was able to get out of the snow tractor under her own power.